Shells Painting Process - Using Colors/Values Instead of Complex Shapes

Hey everyone

Here is a brief introduction to my process behind "Shells", my latest illustration. The intro is divided into some insights of the concept development and technical cues of the execution

Concept

After I chose this crab/fish reference, my challenge was thinking in gesture in which two characters will resemble the reference, some of them were a dancer lifting another dancer, a soldier holding a bazooka with fish shape, and a big guy lifting a girl on the beach, perhaps to throw her into the sea. Eventually, this last one was the most interesting idea to me, as I could integrate another layer into the composition, which is the "beach" subject.

What you need to understand about my process is I interpret references through scenes, these scenes aim to resemble gesture, justify outfits, and develop stories outside of popular stereotype the subjects of the reference had, in this case, animals. This is how the list of topics would look like before jumping into the execution phase.

• Ref: Crab lifting something/someone. A reward?, tool? other person?
• Action: Big crab guy lifts a girl on the beach, she is like no!(scared) and he is happy (doesn’t care).
• Costume (make fabric folds): Beach outfits and props, Hawaiian, Samoan, surf, tattoos.

Execution

While building both anatomies with shapes and lines, I changed the original idea from a guy lifting a girl to a father playing with his son, or family member. I put a little kid just collecting shells, perhaps competing with one of his siblings, in representation of the fish, the big guy just having fun.

The reason behind this conceptual shift was primarily due to composition. I noticed that the character's standing shape would be very simple and wouldn't occupy much space in the composition; in other words, it wasn't interesting enough (check the video to see me struggling). Therefore, by making him sit, I could enlarge him without cropping the body. This approach not only made the composition feel less empty but also gave me more space to integrate interesting colors and shapes created by values (light and shadows), aiming to balance the points of interest. Moreover, lifting someone while sitting would look odd, so a child bringing sea subjects to him while building a sandcastle seemed more realistic

If you're wondering how I come up with these ideas, it's mostly by thinking as if I'm watching a movie. I try to think what situation will justify this character standing or sitting in a specific location, often I imagine at least three options, in case the first one is too obvious and there might be something more original I'm not currently thinking. During execution (shapes, colors, values), some ideas may prove to be insufficient, which means the concept development phase can sometimes extend until the end of the process. This happens because theory and practice are often quite different.

Similar to my past week illustration "Toast," I needed to balance the lack of clothing on this composition as well. I chose to do that through information in tattoos, values, and colors. All of them relatively simple but with some extra work in terms of details, please feel free to check the video and PSD to see this treatment is very unique for these specific pieces.

Conclusion

Choosing a relatively simple reference in terms of shapes helped me dive more into colors and a bit of values, indeed it is a big risk as I often rely on complexity with shapes but it is important to explore in order to gain some knowledge, a new day a new skill to learn.